Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (Ukrainian: Степан Андрійович Бандера; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian political activist and leader of the Ukrainian nationalist and independence movement. Bandera is a controversial historical figure honoured by the contemporary Ukrainian nationalist movement, including the Right Sector[1][2] . Under his orders, up to 100.000 polish and jewish civilians have been killed. This has been an object of heated debate, and is considered a genocide in Poland.[3][4][5][6]

In September 1939, while Poland was being invaded, under unclear circumstances Bandera managed to be freed from prison and proceeded to work, with German support, for an uprising in the Kresy. These eastern Polish territories had a majority Ukrainian population, and went on to become modern Western Ukraine. At the same time, he tried to stoke unrest in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, modern Eastern Ukraine. His goal was to establish a unified Ukrainian state, composed of areas where the majority of inhabitants were ethnic Ukrainians, but that had been under the control of Poland and the Soviet Union.

At that juncture, with the war going very badly against Germany, Bandera was released in the hope that he would fight the advancing Soviet forces. He established his headquarters in Berlin and received German financial, material, and personnel support for his Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

In 1923, at the age of 14, Bandera joined the Ukrainian scout organization "Plast" (Ukrainian: Пласт). Later in his association with Plast, he became a member of the group Chornomortsi (Black Sea Sailors). Bandera received an unconfirmed 4 reprimands during his time as a yunak ("junior"), and is still considered[by whom?] an ideal Plast member.

After graduation from high school in 1927, he planned to attend the Ukrainian College of Technology and Economics in Podebrady in Czechoslovakia, but the Polish authorities did not grant him travel papers.[18]

In 1928, Bandera enrolled in the agronomy program at the Lwów Polytechnika (today, Lviv Polytechnic).[19]—one of the few programs open to Ukrainians at the time.[17] This was due to restrictions placed on minority enrollment—aimed primarily at Jews and Ukrainians—in both secondary schools (gymnasia) and university level institutions by the Polish government.[20]

During his secondary and tertiary education Bandera actively took part in a number of political groups with a nationalist agenda, including in one of the most active of such groups, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN (Ukrainian: Організація Українських Націоналістів).

Stepan Bandera had met and associated himself with members of a variety of Ukrainian nationalist organizations throughout his schooling—from Plast, to the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Українська Визвольна Організація) and also the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN (Ukrainian: Організація Українських Націоналістів). The most active of these organizations was the OUN, and the leader of the OUN was Andriy Melnyk.[17]

Because of his determined personality, Stepan Bandera quickly rose through the ranks of these organizations, becoming the chief propaganda officer of the OUN in 1931, the second in command of OUN in Galicia in 1932–33, and the head of the National Executive or the OUN in 1933.[19]

For Bandera, an inclusive policy of nation building was important and therefore, he focused on growing support amongst all classes of Ukrainians in Western parts of Ukraine. In the early 1930s, Bandera was very active in finding and developing groups of Ukrainian nationalists in both Western and Eastern Ukraine.[17]

Stepan Bandera became head of the OUN national executive in Galicia in June 1933. He expanded the OUN's network in the Kresy, directing it against both Poland and the Soviet Union. To stop expropriations, Bandera turned OUN against the Polish officials who were directly responsible for anti-Ukrainian policies. Activities included mass campaigns against Polish tobacco and alcohol monopolies and against the denationalization of Ukrainian youth. He was arrested in Lviv in 1934, and tried twice: first, concerning involvement in a plot to assassinate the minister of internal affairs, Bronisław Pieracki, and second at a general trial of OUN executives. He was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to death.[19]

According to various sources, Bandera was freed in September 1939, either by Ukrainian jailers after Polish jail administration left the jail,[22] by Poles[23] or by the Nazis soon after the German invasion of Poland.[24][25][26]

Soon thereafter Eastern Poland fell under Soviet occupation. Upon release from prison, Bandera moved to Kraków, the capital of the Germany's occupational General Government. There, he came in contact with the leader of the OUN, Andriy Melnyk. In 1940, the differences between the opinions of the two leaders were strained and the OUN split into two factions—the Melnyk faction led by Andriy Melnyk, which preached a more conservative approach to nation-building, (also known as the OUN-M), and the Bandera faction led by S. Bandera, which supported a revolutionary approach, (also known as the OUN-B).[27]

OUN(B) sought support in Germany's military circles, while the OUN(M) sought connections with its ruling clique. In November 1939 about 800 Ukrainian nationalists began training in Abwehr's military camps. In the first days of December, Bandera, without co-ordination with Melnyk, sent a courier to Lviv with directives for preparation of an armed uprising. The courier was intercepted by the NKVD, which had captured some of the OUN(M)'s leaders. Another such attempt was prevented in Autumn 1940.

Before the independence proclamation of 30 June 1941, Bandera oversaw the formation of so-called "Mobile Groups" (Ukrainian: мобільні групи) which were small (5-15 members) groups of OUN-B members who would travel from General Government to Western Ukraine and after German advance to Eastern Ukraine to encourage support for the OUN-B and establishing the local authorities ruled by OUN-B activists.[28] This included printing out pamphlets and growing membership in OUN.

OUN leaders Andriy Melnyk and Bandera were recruited before World War II into the Nazi Germany military intelligence Abwehr for espionage, counter-espionage and sabotage. Their goal was to run diversion activities after Germany's attack on the Soviet Union. Myelnik was given code name 'Consul I'. This information is part of the testimony that Abwehr Colonel Erwin Stolze gave on 25 December 1945 and submitted to the Nuremberg trials, with a request to be admitted as evidence.[30][31]

In the spring of 1941, according to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and other sources, Bandera held meetings with the heads of Germany's intelligence, regarding the formation of "Nachtigall" and "Roland" Battalions. In spring of that year the OUN received 2.5 million marks for subversive activities inside the USSR.[28][32][33]

Gestapo and Abwehr officials protected Bandera followers, as both organizations intended to use them for their own purposes.[34]

On June 30, 1941, with the arrival of Nazi troops in Ukraine, Bandera and the OUN-B declared an independent Ukrainian State. Some of the published proclamations of the formation of this state say that it "will work closely with the National-Socialist Greater Germany, under the leadership of its leader Adolf Hitler which is forming a new order in Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian People to free itself from Moscovite occupation." - as stated in the text of the "Act of Proclamation of Ukrainian Statehood".[28][33] On July 5 however, Bandera was arrested and transferred to Berlin. On July 12, the president of the newly formed Ukrainian state, Yaroslav Stetsko, was also arrested and taken to Berlin. Although released from custody on July 14, both were required to stay in Berlin.

In 1941 relations between Nazi Germany and the OUN-B soured to the point where a Nazi document dated 25 November 1941 stated that "... the Bandera Movement is preparing a revolt in the Reichskommissariat which has as its ultimate aim the establishment of an independent Ukraine. All functionaries of the Bandera Movement must be arrested at once and, after thorough interrogation, are to be liquidated...".[35]

In April 1944 Bandera and his deputy Yaroslav Stetsko were approached by an RSHA official to discuss plans for diversions and sabotage against the Soviet Army.[37]

In September 1944 [38] Bandera was released by [the German authorities] which hoped that he will incite the native populace to fight the advancing Soviet Army. With German consent Bandera set up headquarters in Berlin.[39] Germans supplied OUN-B and UIA by air with arms and equipment. Assigned German personnel and agents trained to conduct terrorist and intelligence activities behind Soviet lines, as well as some OUN-B leaders, were also transported by air until early 1945.[40][41]

According to Stephen Dorril, author of MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, OUN-B was re-formed in 1946 under the sponsorship of MI6. The organization had been receiving some support from MI6 since the 1930s.[42] One faction of Bandera's organization, associated with Mykola Lebed, became more closely associated with the CIA.[43]

In May 1941 at a meeting in Kraków the leadership of Bandera's OUN faction adopted the program "Struggle and action for OUN during the war" (Ukrainian: "Боротьба й діяльність ОУН під час війни") which outlined the plans for activities at the onset of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the western territories of the Ukrainian SSR.[44] Section G of that document –"Directives for organizing the life of the state during the first days" (Ukrainian: "Вказівки на перші дні організації державного життя") outline activity of the Bandera followers during summer 1941 [45] In the subsection of "Minority Policy" the OUN-B ordered the removal of hostile Poles, Jews, and Russians via deportation and the destruction of their respective intelligentsias, stating further that the "so-called Polish peasants must be assimilated" and to "destroy their leaders."

In late 1942, Bandera's organization, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, was involved in a campaign of ethnic cleansing of Volhynia, and in early 1944, these campaigns began to include Eastern Galicia. It is estimated that about 100,000[46] Poles, mostly women and children along with unarmed men, were killed during the spring and summer campaign of 1943 in Volhynia[47] by the OUN-Bandera which bears primary responsibility for the massacres.

Despite the central role played by Bandera's followers in the massacre of Poles in western Ukraine, Bandera himself was interned in a German concentration camp when the concrete decision to massacre the Poles was made and when the Poles were killed. According to Jaroslaw Hrycak, during his internment, from the summer of 1941, he was not completely aware of events in Ukraine and moreover had serious differences of opinion with Mykola Lebed, the OUN-B leader who remained in Ukraine[48] and who was one of the chief architects of the massacres of Poles.[49] Bandera was thus not directly involved in those massacres.[48]

Unlike competing Polish, Russian, Hungarian or Romanian nationalisms in late imperial Austria, imperial Russia, interwar Poland and Romania, Ukrainian nationalism did not include antisemitism as a core aspect of its program and saw Russians as well as Poles as the chief enemy with Jews playing a secondary role.[50] Nevertheless, Ukrainian nationalism was not immune to the influence of the antisemitic climate in the Eastern and Central Europe,[50] that had already become highly racialized in the late 19th century, and had developed an elaborate anti-Jewish discourse.[51] Two Halicz / Halych Karaites, Anna-Amelia Leonowicz (1925-1949) and her mother, Helena (Ruhama) Leonowicz (1890-1967), paradoxically, became members of the radical organisation of Ukrainian nationalists, Orhanyzatsiia Ukraїns'kykh Natsionalistiv (OUN). According to oral reports by the local Karaites, however, the Leonowicz women collaborated with the Ukrainian nationalists not of their own free will, but under compulsion, while being threatened by the latter.[52]

The predominance of the Soviet central government, rather than the Jewish minority, as the principal perceived enemy of Ukrainian nationalists was highlighted at the OUN-B's Conference in Kraków in 1941 when it declared that "The Jews in the USSR constitute the most faithful support of the ruling Bolshevik regime, and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in Ukraine. The Muscovite-Bolshevik government exploits the anti-Jewish sentiments of the Ukrainian masses to divert their attention from the true cause of their misfortune and to channel them in a time of frustration into pogroms on Jews. The OUN combats the Jews as the prop of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime and simultaneously it renders the masses conscious of the fact that the principal foe is Moscow."[53] In May 1941 at a meeting in Kraków the leadership of Bandera's OUN faction adopted the program "Struggle and action of OUN during the war" (Ukrainian: "Боротьба й діяльність ОУН під час війни") which outlined the plans for activities at the onset of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the western territories of the Ukrainian SSR.[44] Section G of that document –"Directives for organizing the life of the state during the first days" (Ukrainian: "Вказівки на перші дні організації державного життя") outline activity of the Bandera followers during summer 1941 [45] In the subsection of "Minority Policy" the OUN-B ordered: "Moskali, Poles, and Jews that are hostile to us must be exterminated in this struggle, especially those who would resist our regime: deport them to their own lands, importantly: destroy their intelligentsia that may be in the positions of power ... Jews must be isolated, removed from governmental positions in order to prevent sabotage, those who are deemed necessary may only work with an overseer... Jewish assimilation is not possible." [54][55][56] Later in June Yaroslav Stetsko sent to Bandera a report in which he indicated - "We are creating a militia which would help to remove the Jews and protect the population."[57][58] Leaflets spread in the name of Bandera in the same year called for the "destruction" of ""Moscow", Poles, Hungarians and Jewry.[59][60][61] In 1941-1942 while Bandera was cooperating with the Germans, OUN members did take part in anti-Jewish actions. German police at 1941 reported that "fanatic" Bandera followers, organised in small groups were "extraordinarily active" against Jews and communists.[62]

In 1942 German intelligence concluded that Ukrainian nationalists were indifferent to the plight of the Jews and were willing to either kill them or help them, depending on what better served their cause. Several Jews took part in Bandera's underground movement,[63] including one of Bandera's close associates Richard Yary who was also married to a Jewish woman. Another notable Jewish UPA member was Leyba-Itzik "Valeriy" Dombrovsky. According to a report to the Chief of the Security Police in Berlin dated March 30, 1942, "...it has been clearly established that the Bandera movement provided forged passports not only for its own members, but also for Jews.".[64] The false papers were most likely supplied to Jewish doctors or skilled workers who could be useful for the movement.[65]

When Bandera was in conflict with the Germans, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army under his authority sheltered many Jews[66] and included Jewish fighters and medical personnel.[67][68] In the official organ of the OUN-B's leadership, instructions to OUN groups urged those groups to "liquidate the manifestations of harmful foreign influence, particularly the German racist concepts and practices."[69]

On 15 October 1959, Stepan Bandera collapsed outside of Kreittmayrstrasse 7 in Munich and died shortly thereafter. A medical examination established that the cause of his death was poison by cyanide gas.[70] On October 20, 1959, Stepan Bandera was buried in the Waldfriedhof Cemetery in Munich. His grave was desecrated on 17 August 2014 by unknown vandals, who toppled the 1.8 m cross.[71]

Two years after his death, on 17 November 1961, the German judicial bodies announced that Bandera's murderer had been a KGB defector named Bohdan Stashynsky who acted on the orders of Soviet KGB head Alexander Shelepin and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.[72] After a detailed investigation against Stashynsky, a trial took place from 8 October to 15 October 1962. Stashynsky was convicted, and on 19 October he was sentenced to eight years in prison. The Federal Court of Justice of Germany confirmed at Karlsruhe that in the Bandera murder, the Soviet secret service was the main guilty party.

His brother Aleksandr (who had a PhD in Political Economy from the University of Rome) and brother Vasyl (a graduate in Philosophy, Lviv University) were arrested and interned in Auschwitz, where they were allegedly killed by Polish inmates in 1942.[73]

Andriy Bandera, Stepan's father, was arrested in late May 1941 for harboring an OUN member and transferred to Kiev. In 8 July he was sentenced to death and executed on the 10th. His sisters Oksana and Marta-Maria were arrested by the NKVD in 1941 and sent to a GULAG in Siberia. Both were released in 1960 without the right to return to Ukraine. Marta-Maria died in Siberia in 1982, and Oksana returned to Ukraine in 1989 where she died in 2004. Another sister, Volodymyra, was sentenced to a term in Soviet labor camps from 1946-1956. She returned to Ukraine in 1956.[74] Stepan's brother Bohdan's fate remains unknown, as accounts vary: some sources[who?] say he was killed by the Gestapo in Mykolayiv in 1943, other sources[who?] say he was killed by the NKVD operatives in 1944, but to date even family members have no definite information.

In an interview with Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in 2005, former KGB Chief Vladimir Kryuchkov claimed that "the murder of Stepan Bandera was one of the last cases when the KGB disposed of undesired people by means of violence."[79]

In October 2007, the city of Lviv erected a statue dedicated to Bandera.[81] The appearance of the statue has engendered a far-reaching debate about the role of Stepan Bandera and UPA in Ukrainian history. The two previously erected statues were blown up by unknown perpetrators; the current is guarded by a militia detachment 24/7. On October 18, 2007, the Lviv City Council adopted a resolution establishing the "Award of Stepan Bandera."[82][83]

On January 1, 2014 Bandera's 105th birthday was celebrated by a torchlight procession of 15,000 people in the centre of Kiev and thousands more rallied near his statue in Lviv.[90][91][92] The march was supported by the far-right Svoboda party and some members of the center-right Batkivshchyna.[93]

Lviv soccer fans at a game against Donetsk. The banner reads in Ukrainian, "Bandera – our hero"

Bandera continues to be a divisive figure in Ukraine. Although Bandera is venerated in certain parts of western Ukraine, and 33% of Lviv's residents consider themselves to be followers of Bandera,[94] in surveys of Ukraine as a whole he, along with Joseph Stalin and Mikhail Gorbachev, is considered among the three historical figures who produce the most negative attitudes.[95] A national survey conducted in Ukraine in 2009 inquired about attitudes by region towards Bandera's faction of the OUN. It produced the following results: In Galicia (provinces of Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk) 37% had a "very positive" opinion of Bandera, 26% a "mostly positive" opinion, 20% were neutral, "mostly negative", 6% very negative, and 6% unsure. In Volhynia, 5% had a very positive opinion, 20% a mostly positive opinion, 57% were neutral, 7% were mostly negative, 5% very negative and 7% were unsure. In Transcarpathia 4% of the respondents had a very positive opinion, 32% a mostly positive opinion, 50% were neutral, none had a mostly negative opinion, 7% had a very negative opinion and 7% were unsure. In contrast, in central Ukraine (comprising the capital Kiev, as well as the provinces of Zhytomyr, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia, and Kirovohrad) attitudes towards Bandera's faction of the OUN were 3% very positive, 10% mostly positive, 24% neutral, 17% mostly negative, 21% very negative and 25% unsure. In Eastern Ukraine (the provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia) 1% each had very positive or mostly positive attitudes towards Bandera's OUN, 19% were neutral, 13% mostly negative, 26% very negative and 20% unsure. In Ukraine's south (the Odessa, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions plus Crimea) 1% each were very or mostly positive, 13% were neutral, 31% mostly negative, 48% very negative and 25% were unsure. In Ukraine as a whole, 6% of Ukrainians had a very positive opinion, 8% a mostly positive opinion, 23% were neutral, 15% had a mostly negative opinion, 30% had a very negative opinion, and 18% were unsure.[96]

Legacy of Bandera during the 2014 Crimean crisis and 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine[edit]

Headquarters of the Euromaidan, Kiev, January 2014. At the front entrance there is a portrait of Bandera.

Reactions to Bandera's award vary. This award has been condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center[104] and the Student Union of French Jews.[105] On the same day, numerous Ukrainian media, such as the Russian language Segodnya, published articles in that regard mentioning the case of Yevhen Berezniak, a widely known Ukrainian Soviet World War II veteran, considering to renounce his own Hero of Ukraine title.[106] The representatives from several antifascist organizations in neighboring Slovakia condemned the award to Bandera, calling Yushchenko's decision a provocation was reported by RosBisnessConsulting referring to Radio Praha.[107] On February 25, 2010, the European Parliament criticized the decision by then president of Ukraine, Yushchenko to award Bandera the title of Hero of Ukraine and expressed hope it would be reconsidered.[108] On May 14, 2010 in a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said about the award: "that the event is so odious that it could no doubt cause a negative reaction in the first place in Ukraine. Already it is known a position on this issue of a number of Ukrainian politicians, who believe that solutions of this kind do not contribute to the consolidation of Ukrainian public opinion".[109]

On the other hand, the decree was applauded by Ukrainian nationalists, in western Ukraine and by a small portion of Ukrainian-Americans.[110][111] On January 25, 2010, the head of the Czech Confederation political prisoners Nadia Kavalirova expressed support for the decision of the Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to award the title of Hero of Ukraine to Stepan Bandera, stating "It is good that he (Yushchenko) made this step; many Czech politicians can draw lessons from it..."

President Viktor Yanukovych stated on March 5, 2010 he would make a decision to repeal the decrees to honour the title as Heroes of Ukraine to Bandera and fellow nationalist Roman Shukhevych before the next Victory Day,[115] although the Hero of Ukraine decrees do not stipulate the possibility that a decree on awarding this title can be annulled.[116] On April 2, 2010, an administrative Donetsk region court ruled the Presidential decree awarding the title to be illegal. According to the court's decision, Bandera wasn't a citizen of the Ukrainian SSR (vis-à-vis Ukraine).[117][118][119][120]

In January 2011, the presidential press service informed that the award was officially annulled.[15][122] This was done after a cassation appeals filed against the ruling by Donetsk District Administrative Court was rejected by the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine on January 12, 2011.[123][124] Former President Yushchenko called the annulment "a gross error".[125]

^Narvselius, Eleonora (2012). "The 'Bandera Debate': The Contentious Legacy of World War II and Liberalization of Collective Memory in Western Ukraine". Canadian Slavonic Papers54 (3–4): 469–490. ISSN0008-5006.

^Leo Heiman, "We Fought for Ukraine - The Story of Jews Within the UPA", Ukrainian Quarterly Spring 1964, pp.33-44.

^Friedman Essays (1980). pg. 204. Among several Jews saved by UPA Friedman mentions a Jewish physician and his wife whom he knows in Israel who were saved by UPA, another Jewish physician and his brother who lived in Tel Aviv after the war